


a handful of sky

by theformerone



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hashirama is doing his Best with these two tbqh, Insecure Madara, M/M, Mito is more than they deserve, Multi, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Uchiha Madara-centric, this started as porn but i don't know what it is now, wet dreams
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-05-30 00:34:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15085163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: Hashirama's wife whirls into Uchiha territory and saves his little brother's life without so much as blinking at him. Five days later, her proposal comes.He doesn't trust her at first. What they're trying to do isn't tolerated in Fire Country. In Whirlpool, she says, it's common courtesy.





	1. how deeply are you sleeping (or are you still awake?)

Izuna is bleeding and there is nothing their medics can do to stop it. Madara isn’t sure of how not to feel helpless. The Sharingan lets him mimic any technique, lets him summon chakra into a shroud around him, lets him spit fire that can snake its way through the earth’s crust. But it can’t help him save his brother’s life.  

He had dealt with worse. Izuna was a good soldier, which meant he had come close to death many times and had returned from each encounter a lot more deadly. 

It was rare that Tobirama landed such a blow. He pulled his punches when his brother was around. Madara was aware that the only thing that kept the younger Senju from fighting with full sincerity was - whatever it was that was between Madara and Hashirama.

Something unnameable for the time being. 

And today, Tobirama forgot to pull back. Used a technique, one that gave him the kind of speed that the Sharingan could not anticipate or mimic. 

Madara knew the wound was bad, but he didn’t get a chance to assess it as thoroughly as he should have. If he had, if he had noticed the severity of the cut, he might have run back to camp faster. Might have gotten Izuna the attention he needed sooner. 

As it was, he stared at Hashirama’s outstretched hand. Looked in his eyes, brown and wide and desperate for Madara to trust him. To give him a chance like he did when they were children. 

There was a time when Madara knew Hashirama’s hand well. Throwing stones, jan-ken-pon games, drawing in the sand; they had given him a map of Hashirama’s palms. They were square shaped in childhood, with stubby fingers that spoke of breakage and healing. 

There was little time to notice his hands as they got older. How could Madara spare his attention, when he was watching his younger brothers die until he could only protect Izuna, fiercely as he did?  

So he ignored Hashirama and his hands except for when he could not, which was when they were forming seals that would create something (marvelous) that would take Madara’s life (except they never would, Hashirama never would) or bring down his sword (in a glancing blow) to cleave Madara’s head from his shoulders. 

But today, with his brother losing blood in his arms and Hashirama standing there, making the kind of promise that’s only been thought of-dreamt about-wished for-ignored since they were children, Madara has a chance to look again.  

Hashirama’s hand was longer now, with long fingers, and small scars littered pale pink up until the sleeve of his armor covered the rest of the skin from view. His fingernails were short. As children, it had been a nervous habit, Hashirama biting his nails. It looked like it hasn’t quite ended. 

He looked from the hand up to Hashirama and even though, even though Tobirama is standing there with Izuna’s blood still on his sword, something in Madara aches to believe in that dream again. 

Hashirama sees it, sees it because Madara has always been easy to read for him. Ever since those little meetings, the crinkles in his eyebrows, the way he quirked his mouth, rolled his eyes, grumbled; Hashirama had smiled at him and called him an open book.  

Madara wonders what his face must look like right now. Was his soul one full of loneliness, if his eyes were windows into it? What did Hashirama see? His fury? His fear? Did he see Madara as he was now, or as he was when they were younger? 

Maybe he wasn’t looking so deeply at all. Maybe he only saw the Madara, standing, exhausted, holding up his bleeding (not dying, not dying, not dying) brother in his arms. 

He saw the swell of Hashirama’s palm. But he heard Izuna’s wet cough, and that made the decision for him. 

He would always pick his brother over Hashirama. He always had, hadn’t he? 

Hadn’t he?

* * *

The medics tell him Izuna won’t make it past the week. Madara doesn’t move from his side, can’t make himself get up. The guilt holds him down by the shoulders, and feels oddly like Tajima’s hands, his grip. 

A little cousin brings him his meals because the clan knows that Madara’s one weakness is small children. Her name is Aiko, and she’s a distant relation. She’s one of a precious small handful of girls, which ensures that regardless of her prowess in battle, she will probably never fight on the front lines. 

Aiko is quiet when she brings him his food, and sits patiently behind him until he eats. And he has never had the heart to shout at a child, not the way his father did, and his grandfather before him. So he makes himself eat only so that Aiko will go away. 

He doesn’t want her to see the heir of the Uchiha die. He does not want her in the room when he covers Izuna’s face, and calls the elders so that they can prepare his body for cremation. 

Other than Aiko he has few visitors. The medics are far more polite than the elders. They tell him him how Izuna is faring and make little conversation otherwise. Madara isn’t interested in talking about anything else. 

The elders want him to begin thinking about naming another heir. Madara isn’t interested. He knows that as the clan head, he has certain responsibilities but he prefers to ignore them. 

His brother’s wound won’t stop bleeding. How can anything else take precedent? 

When she comes, it’s under the guise of seeing how Izuna is doing, but Madara knows better. Nadeshiko was relegated to Amaterasu’s shrine for being born Tajima’s bastard. Madara has never felt any type of way about having a sister. He only found out they were blood after his father’s death, when he became the clan head. 

And she is lovely, Nadeshiko is. She must favor her mother, because she looks very little like Madara and Izuna. Her hair has a gentle curl and her eyes are a sharp grey. She smiles more freely than Madara and Izuna do, likely because of her childhood and education in the temple. Still, she is capable of severity. 

She sits beside him, looking down at her older brother. She says little and Madara appreciates that. He doesn’t want to force a relationship with her, a kinship, especially when he knows what she is here for. 

She’s only sixteen, but she’s smarter than most give her credit for. 

“You know why they sent me,” she says softly, and Madara clenches his fists on his knees. 

“I’ll tell them what they want to hear,” Nadeshiko murmurs, continuing as if Madara isn’t on the verge of a breakdown. “Don’t worry.”

His fists loosen. If his eyes aren’t tricking him, Izuna seems to breathe easier despite the bleeding. 

“What do they want to hear?” Madara asks, mouth oddly dry. 

It can’t have been that long since he has  spoken to another person. It can’t be. 

Nadeshiko shrugs her shoulders, the movement oddly common for a priestess of Amaterasu. If Izuna was awake enough to see it, he’d probably laugh. 

“That you’re thinking very seriously about naming your heir,” Nadeshiko drawls. “That you’re being very clearheaded about this whole ordeal. That you leave Izuna’s side for meals and katas.”

She looks at him from the corner of her gaze, and wrinkles her nose. 

“That you bathe. 

Madara bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from snorting. Nadeshiko is sharper in private than she was when she was introduced to him after their father’s death. 

She had been demure. Kept her eyes downcast. Only her rank as a priestess had given Madara a clue about her true nature. Amaterasu did not let those into her fold lightly. 

Nadeshiko settles her sleeves together, wrapping her hands around her forearms. 

“Make your decision before you leave again.”

She isn’t looking at him now, or at Izuna either. She’s staring at the wall. Izuna’s easy breathing stutters, then continues. 

“You’ll want revenge if anything happens,” Nadeshiko says, suddenly wiser than her sixteen years dictate. “It’s something all of our clansmen have done. But you lead us, and if you leave us without naming an heir, you will put all of us in jeopardy.”

Izuna’s loss would hurt the clan. Not as much as it would hurt Madara, but a fair amount. Nadeshiko’s illegitimacy ensured that Izuna was the last direct descendant of Uchiha Kisuke. The line had been unbroken, at least one legitimate son or daughter alive long enough to sire children. 

If (and only if) Izuna died, Madara knew he would do anything in his power to drag justice from the Senju. From Tobirama. From Hashirama. It wasn’t a matter of how long it would take, it was a matter of where the world would cower when it happened. 

He couldn’t leave his clan unattended. That was begging for civil war. Madara knew some of his clansmen were tiring of fighting, while others were still livid, still ready to pour more of their own blood out on the battlefield to see the Senju beaten into submission. 

If he left no heir, he left choices to the elders, which wasn’t a very bad idea to be sure. But it meant there was no one to unify them under one vision. It also meant the elders would elect a new clan head from their own children and nepotism would run rampant. 

It would end Uchiha Kisuke’s line in one blow. And as much as he wants to ignore it, he has been raised from birth to put his clan, put his family, first. All of them. Not just Izuna, but all of them. 

“It’s not a good job,” he says softly. 

Nadeshiko tilts her head. 

“Can’t be much harder than being the vessel for a goddess,” she muses. 

Madara snorts, tries not to feel guilty for the half smile that fights to come to his face. 

“Can’t be,” he agrees. 

Nadeshiko dusts off her knees and purses her lips, clearly musing something over. Madara looks at her, and for a split second, she doesn’t look like his potential heir, like a priestess of Amaterasu. She looks sixteen. Coltish. Young. 

Terribly young. Did Madara ever look that young? He remembers Izuna looking like that. 

Still, his shoulders feel a little lighter. Naming Nadeshiko his heir would legitimize her. She’d have strong standing as a leader, a priestess and clan head both. If Izuna died and Madara left, the clan would be in good hands. He hoped. 

He’d name her soon. Within the hour of Izuna’s death would be customary. And now that he already settled on it, saying it out loud would be easier. 

“I came to say hello,” Nadeshiko says after a few moments of silence. “But also to invite you two to my wedding.”

Madara’s eyes widen. He hadn’t even known Nadeshiko had suitors. Then again, why would he?

“When?” he asks. “And to who?”

She narrows her eyes at him, and only Uchiha women can silence someone with a glance quite like that.  

“It’s ‘whom’,” she says. And then she sits up straighter, as if that’s possible, and stares ahead to say, “And to one of the former Hyūga men. Tohru.”

Madara nods, pretending he knows what that means. He knows that the Hyūga that were born without pale eyes were often abandoned. Under his father’s leadership, several of them had been taken into the Uchiha as vassals. 

Still, he doesn’t know the name Tohru, or the man the name supposedly belongs to. 

Nadeshiko rolls her eyes. Clearly Madara is the one being unreasonable. Which is probably true. He’s the clan head, and Nadeshiko is his little sister, odd as it sounds. He should be the one brokering this marriage for her. 

Then, she is a priestess, and can move more individually as such. Maybe Tajima had done her a favor by placing her there. If he knew his sons, maybe this had been the plan the whole time. 

“I’d like to invite you both, personally,” she says, and she offers the barest fidget and it’s enough to confuse the hell out of Madara.

“You want us to come to your wedding?”

Nadeshiko rolls her eyes again.  

“You would’ve been invited anyway,” she says. “You two are very important. But I wanted to invite you personally. I want you to be there.”

It comes very far out of left field, this sister he’s hardly acknowledged asking him and their dying brother to her wedding. And maybe that’s the point. Another ruse, something else to keep Madara from his brother’s side. The elders had put her up to it, probably. 

“The both of you.”

She says it again and Madara nods. Nadeshiko sucks her teeth and leans back so that she can rise.  

She bows before she does though, and deeply. 

“I will take my leave then, Madara-sama.”

The honorific chafes him. When Nadeshiko rises, she produces a small charm from her sleeves. She unfolds Izuna’s curled fingers and places the charm inside, curls his hand back around it. 

“For his health,” she says by way of an explanation.  

Then she stands, and she goes. 

* * *

Izuna gets worse.   

Madara imagines a thousand worst case scenarios and it seems like they all come to pass. Izuna’s internal organs won’t stop bleeding, the edges of the wound don’t want to close, he can’t breathe well, the wound is infected. 

The medics go from visiting once or twice daily to every four hours to make sure his condition doesn’t get worse faster than they can fix it. 

Madara loses sleep. He doesn’t remember the last time he got more than a few hours a night. He can’t rest with his brother sweating, groaning in pain, shaking out a fever. 

Nadeshiko comes and goes with her charms. Aiko comes and goes with meals. The elders visit less. The medics come more. 

Madara is sure that by the end of the week, his brother will be dead. It is a numbing realization. He doesn’t want to think about it, but the knowing creeps into his mind and plants itself there. 

Izuna will be dead soon. His baby brother will be dead soon. The last person he has in the world will breathe his last and Madara will be there to witness it. 

There is no dread to crawl up his throat. Madara saw his mother die. Was there when his father fell. Has seen countless Uchiha die. Has laid waste to the Senju and their allies. Death is an old companion that sits beside him, waiting patiently for Izuna to breathe his last. 

Madara knows the fury is hiding inside of him. He can feel it, boiling, keening, waiting to burst forth. It has always been in him, only released when necessary, and carefully locked down until then. Despite his bravado, it is rare that he sincerely loses his cool. 

When (not if anymore, not if, but when, when, when) Izuna dies, there will be nothing to stop him from letting fury have him. 

And it would have him. 

Izuna breathes, and it is labored and difficult. Madara watches, the shinigami at his side, his fury curling in his stomach. 

Not an if anymore but a when. When, when, when. Soon. Madara knows what it looks like, when life retreats from the body and sickness asserts itself. He watched it happen to his mother, and he watches Izuna fight it, weakly as he can. 

He wants to tell his little brother to rest. To sleep. But that will give death permission, and Madara is selfish. 

He opens his mouth to say something comforting, something soft, but then there is a mountain of noise that pulls Madara to his feet and dispels the shinigami at his side. 

“Madara-sama!” 

The door slides open, and a cousin with a frightened face stares him down. Whether or not he’s afraid of Madara or of whatever is bringing him into the room  has yet to be seen. 

"There's a - a woman," the boy says. "A kunoichi. She's here to see you."

Madara lifts an eyebrow but the boy doesn't bak down at the expression. 

"She can wait."

The boy shakes his head minutely, his eyes wide as clay bowls. 

"It's Senju Hashirama's wife, Madara-sama."

* * *

It's her. Sitting there in the middle of the sitting room as if she's supposed to be there. A cousin has a nagitana to her throat, but she sits primly. As if they are the intruders into her home. 

She makes the hair on the back of Madara's neck stand up. Not in the way that Hashirama does, but in the way that Tobirama does. She was a quiet strength, zero telegraphed movements, no wasted effort anywhere. 

Hashirama's Mokuton even after all these years was difficult to tamp down. But Tobirama pulled out a strange kind of fuinjutsu without a breath between one second and the next. Hashirama's wife holds herself the same way her brother-in-law does.

"What do you want?" he asks, and he can't help the way his lip curls, the way the fury flutters in his ribcage. 

She looks up at him through her red bangs, her grey eyes like chips of steel. 

She isn't dressed in armor. She's in white and blue, her hair pulled back. Her white sleeves are heavy, which tells Madara that she is armed. Or she was, until she arrived here. 

"Uchiha-sama," she says, and her voice is not what Madara expected.

It is harder, full of gravel and smoke. The honorific chafes as much as when Nadeshiko uses it.

She inclines her head politely, but flicks her eyes back up to keep contact. Madara bristles, wants her to look away, wants the power he supposedly has as clan head to make her keep her eyes down, to make her balk or shiver. 

She shouldn't be here. Not after what Tobirama has done. 

"What," he asks again, grinding the words out, "do you want?"

She blinks, and Madara has to wonder how Hashirama married this woman, who is so cool, so collected when her husband is constant movement and exuberance; joy and laughter and - 

Madara smothers the fury and the jealousy that tries to mate with it, keeps himself focused. 

"My name is Uzumaki Mito," she says, and that is enough to make Madara falter. 

She didn't take the Senju name. And what did that mean for Hashirama, and for their children? For the future of the Senju?

"I am here to make amends for my brother-in-law's actions."

Madara narrows his eyes. The Uchiha around him tense, similarly untrusting. 

"My brother is dying," Madara snaps. "He is beyond help."

It may not be what the elders want him to say, but it is the truth, and Madara is beyond lying. His grief is premature, he knows, but there is an object for his ire sitting in front of him. Madara can be petty, can be wicked and hurtful and cruel, and while the fury beats its wings in his chest, he has enough venom in him to be rude to Hashirama's wife. 

"He is not."

She say it like a fact. Like he is the fool. 

"Uzushio," she continues, hands folded politely in her lap, "has a very advanced type of medical fuinjutsu that might be able to help your brother."

Fuinjutsu was what caused Izuna's condition in the first place, and Madara is loathe to let something so similar close to his brother again. Not to mention the fact that he had little reason to trust Mito in the first place. 

"I will heal him if you will allow me," Mito says, "and if he does not live, my life will be forfeit."

Madara's mouth goes dry. How was he supposed to respond to that? To Hashirama's wife offering him vengeance so soon? Would it hurt Hashirama to lose her as much as it would hurt Madara to lose Izuna?

And on what authority had she come here to offer her techniques and her life should they fail?

Madara opens his mouth to deny her, to demand his cousins to walk this foolish woman back to the border so she could make her way back to Senju territory on her own, when she places one of her pretty hands low against her stomach. 

"My life," she says, "and the life of Senju Hashirama's heir."

And how can he say no to an offer like that? 

* * *

 

He leads her into Izuna's room. She tucks her legs beneath herself, and Madara sits on Izuna's other side. A cousin had placed a sword in his hand before he guided her back here. Madara will not kill her over Izuna's corpse if it comes to that, but he will gut her before his brother's lungs finished their last rattle. 

Mito folds back her sleeves, then carefully begins to undress Izuna. She pulls his shirt down, exposing the wound. It reeks with rot, but Mito does not so much as wrinkle her nose. Instead, she lifts a hand to the tag hanging from her hair. She breathes through her nose and runs her fingers along it and the kanji on it glows a faint green. 

She places one hand on Izuna's shoulder to hold him down, and then she places the tag directly on top of the wound. It soaks up Izuna's blood, but it takes the pus with it, pulls up the ick of a healing gone wrong. 

Izuna comes alive. He shouts, thrashes, sits straight up with a strength that he shouldn't have for a man so close to death. Madara reaches out to help hold him down, but Mito does it on her own, forces her forearm onto Izuna's collarbone and forces him back down to the ground. 

Underneath her hand, the tag turns black. And when the last fleck of white leaves the paper, Mito rips it off Izuna's chest and ignites it with a singlehanded katon. 

"Pass me that bowl."

The command is sharp, brooking no argument, and Madara reaches for the bowl only because he hasn't seen Izuna with that much life in him for weeks, for  _weeks_. Hasn't seen him pull a face, hasn't seen him with that much color in his face, that much presence in his eyes. 

He gives Mito the bowl, and she uses the wet towel in it to sop up Izuna's blood. His brother groans, but he's relaxed, looks more alive, looks less like he's going to keel over between one heartbeat and the next. 

Mito pulls the second tag off of her hairpin and presses it more gently against Izuna's chest. His brother breathes out slowly, as if relieved, and the smell of something like a salve or a poultice fills the air. 

Madara watches his brother breathe and Mito tucks her bangs behind her ear. 

"The first one expels infection," she says, "and the second one keeps him stable. He'll live." 

Madara touches his brother's forehead. His fever is gone. He doesn't have the slightest look of sickness to him. He looks like he's just tired, in dire need of some nap. 

"I can teach you." 

His eyes snap to her, and Mito looks at him with that cool way of hers, completely unbothered. Still, he doesn't know what to say. 

"I will stay," she says, "if you will have me. For five days. And I will teach you the basics of medical fuinjutsu."

Madara opens his mouth, shuts it again. He swallows hard, and looks down at his brother. Izuna is sleeping soundly. His breathing doesn't rattle, doesn't shake his lungs in his ribcage. 

"Haru," Madara mutters. "Kou. Take her away."

The two appear from nowhere, snapping into the room with a shushin. The smoke around them doesn't even make Mito flinch, and she stares at him, with her steely eyes as they lift her by the arms and drag her bodily out of the room. She doesn't break eye contact for a moment.

Madara looks down at his brother, more alive than Madara ever anticipated he'd see him again. He wonders how in Amaterasu's name this happened, and what he's going to do with Hashirama's wife rotting in a cell away fro the sun. 

He doesn't think about it long. Madara watches Izuna sleep soundly the entire night. And when he wakes up the next morning, there is a blanket around his shoulders. Izuna is curled up on his side, face twitching as he dreams, and Madara wonders why the weight on his shoulders seems heavier than it did when he thought his brother was going to die.


	2. be careful, oh, my darling, oh, be careful what it takes (from what i've seen so far, the good ones always seem to break)

He dreams of her with her mouth around Hashirama's cock, cheeks hollowed, red hair spilling around her shoulders, concealing her steel grey eyes from view. Dreams her hand around the base, grasping what she can't fit in her mouth, the wet sound of her lips sucking hard, finding purchase. 

He dreams Hashirama's groans, his large hands too kind to yank her hair. He dreams them bunched up in the sheets, fabric twisting out from between his knuckles. He dreams her swallowing around his length, dreams Hashirama bucking his hips, dipping into her throat.

And when Hashirama spills there, branches force their way between the floorboards. Flowers sprout wildly from between Hashirama's knuckles, and he fucks himself into his wife's throat, pouring life there, and she stays on her knees, swallowing, swallowing it all.

She doesn't take her mouth off until he's soft, and it takes years for it to happen, and in the years it takes, Madara's cock stiffens in his sleep, dribbles precum as Mito loosens her mouth's vice like grip off her husband. And she coaxes more out of it, even as Hashirama whimpers, and the cum that he releases becomes pearls when Mito lowers her lips to it.

Hashirama cries, an errant tear or two slipping out of the corners of his eyes, and Mito licks those, too, nuzzles his cheek as she works him with her palm, and an orchard grove blossoms to life around them, trees heavy with fruit and flowers, and Mito is as slow as she is relentless, until Hashirama is whimpering and twitching between her hands, in her mouth, on her small breasts, until when he comes, he does it in dry heaves, helpless jerks of his hips into whatever space she's made around his cock.

And when she flicks her eyes like knives up, they pierce Madara through the chest. He is a stranger in this grove. A foreigner. An intruder. She lifts an eyebrow at him, neither welcoming or uninviting. And before Madara can open his mouth to explain himself, his presence here, his nakedness, Mito squeezes her fist around her husband's cock. Hashirama  _wails_. 

Madara wakes up to sticky sheets, feeling like a boy. An idiot boy. It has been a long time since he's had a wet dream. He thought he left those behind when he was sixteen, thought they were definitely gone when he was eighteen and had his first camp boy in his tent, further gone still when his first camp woman came at nineteen. 

Apparently, he's wrong. 

He rouses himself from bed, throws off his soiled sleeping yukata to pull a clean one around him. He summons a new raven to poke its head into Izuna's room, to stand watch over his brother until Madara will do it himself. 

He scrubs himself down thoroughly in the stone floor wash room. He doesn't bother calling for a servant boy to heat it; the cold clears his head this early in the morning. When he's done, he leaves for the hot springs, quiet as his feet will carry him there. He bathes slowly, leisurely, letting the absurd heat of the water suck the tension out of his body. 

A caw overhead tells him Izuna is awake, and Madara rises from the hot water with a slightly clearer head. He returns to the main house, dresses himself, and walks into his brother's room. 

Izuna is sitting upright, which is a small miracle. The raven that Madara had sent to watch over him is called Toriko, and she's five times as fast flying as Madara is running. She noses at Izuna's hair, grooming it, nipping at his ear when he tries to stop her. 

"You look well," Madara says, even though his throat feels like it's full of cotton. 

Izuna looks up at him, and his eyes are still full of sleep, but he smiles. Toriko taps her beak against his temple, and he lets out a light 'Ow', mostly for her benefit. 

"I feel well," he replies. He gives Madara a once over, brows furrowed as he does. "You look like shit."

Madara snorts, trying for unaffected but only finding the slight panic that came yesterday when his brother was on the verge of death and then rather suddenly  _wasn't_. 

"I just had a bath." 

"Yeah?" Izuna returns. "I was just dead, and I still look better than you."

Toriko beaks at his cheek roughly for that, drawing a little dot of blood. Izuna yelps but lays his hand on the raven's back, ruffling her feathers to do so. 

"Don't hold your breath," Madara says. "I could make you dead again." 

Izuna rolls his eyes. Toriko turns her attentions to Madara, the look in her eye obviously displeased. She crows at him, a sharp, unhappy sound. She hates it when they quarrel, even in jest. 

Madara steps forward and drops to his knees. He takes Izuna by the back of the head and drags him forward, pulls him into an embrace that's definitely too rough, too tight for someone who was very recently bleeding internally. But Izuna doesn't make a noise of protest. He holds onto Madara right back, squeezing his brother with the little strength he has in his body. 

It's only been the two of them for so long. It was - It was odd, to be so close to being the last of them.

"I'm glad I'm not dead," Izuna says, shuddering the words into Madara's shoulder. 

Madara gives him a squeeze, and is struck with a memory of Izuna and his childhood nightmares. The ones that plagued him before their father beat the fear of yokai out of him by replacing it with a fear of Senju bogeymen, and of war. 

Izuna would crawl into Madara's bed, seeking comfort during thunderstorms when he thought the yokai were most likely to come and steal him away. He would crawl into Madara's bed if Tajima caught Izuna in the hallway before he got there, and Madara would wrap up Izuna's little wrists, slowly purpling from the bruises shaped like their father's strong fingers. 

The Uchiha believed that children should be present for childbirth. Madara had watched his mother give birth to all of his brothers, had been the first person to hold them, to rub a little bit of ash on their foreheads so Amaterasu would know which children were now part of her flock, now under her all seeing eye of warmth. 

Madara had held all of his little brothers when they were born, and he had held nearly all of them as they died. He had been so close to losing Izuna. Too close. Too close by far. 

"What's this I hear about you making Nadeshiko your heir?" 

Madara tenses, and Izuna pulls back. There's a puzzled expression on his face, but he doesn't look angry. 

"Who - ?" Madara stops himself, thinks better of it. Izuna's always been perceptive. It shouldn't surprise him. "You heard us yesterday."

Izuna nods, and Toriko pecks at Madara's forehead. The touch is light; a warning. He eases away from his brother, gives him a little more space. 

"Can't say I'm opposed," Izuna says, scratching the back of his neck. "We've got a pretty scary little sister. Not to mention the whole 'avatar of the goddess' thing she has being in the temple."

"It's almost like father planned this from the start."

That gets a laugh out of Izuna, albeit an unhappy one. 

"Maybe," he concedes. "She's a good back up plan."

Madara squirms. Izuna's eyes widen and he shakes his head. 

"I didn't - ,"

"No," Madara replies. "No. I understand. She is. This is probably what he thought would happen. Not in the way it happened, but, you know." 

It was odd for both of them to think that Tajima thought so well into the future when it came to his bastard. The Uchiha always did pride their women. Even if Tajima had kept Uchiha Jingū pregnant and away from the front lines in hope of securing the Sharingan for every single son she bore, he could not have done it if she had not given her consent. 

Uchiha women were strong. Terrifyingly so. Madara had never seen Nadeshiko in battle, but she had been raised in the temple. That she had not been politely kicked out, or stalled at a lower level position in the order spoke to her ability. 

Uchiha women survived the impossible. It made sense, to have a daughter as a back up plan. A contingency. In case all else failed. Even if both Madara and Izuna died, Nadeshiko surely could have swung her weight as Tajima's bastard and as Amaterasu's daughter to make herself candidate for clan head. She didn't need Madara. 

"It's _okay,_ " Izuna says, pressing. Then, he smiles. "Getting booted out of my only job is a small price to pay for a wedding invitation." 

Madara snorts at that, and Izuna laughs at his brother, and for a moment, things are easy. Izuna had never been suited to leadership. He was a good fighter, was charismatic as anything. But he was too loving. That was what Tajima said his greatest weakness was. Too loving. Too soft, until suddenly his softness was coarse and violent. He didn't know moderation, in kindness or in cruelty. And that was because he was too loving. Love corroded in Izuna, could make him sour if the object of his care was in any way threatened. 

Tajima had tried to break him of that. Had forbidden Izuna access to his mother, had throttled him when he sought out Madara in comfort when he had nightmares. Suffice to say, it hadn't worked. 

Izuna's laughter peters out into silence, and Madara's follows it. His little brother's face suddenly turns serious, and Madara braces himself for the question he knows is coming. 

"Hashirama's wife," Izuna says, his throat tight. "Take me to her."

* * *

There's no use arguing with Izuna when he sets his mind to something. He's about four times as stubborn as Madara, which means he's worse than their father. On par with their mother on even her best days. 

Madara doesn't bother telling him that he's still too weak, that he hasn't eaten anything, hasn't been able to hold anything down in days. That his condition is still fragile. Healing is a messy, unpolished art. It demands respect from those who practice it and those that are under his influence. 

Izuna narrows his eyes at him and swats at his arm when he tries to get the words out, and levels himself to his feet on his own. 

"If you won't take me, I'll find her myself."

Madara gives up. It'd just be faster to give Izuna what he wanted, to let him exhaust himself on this errand of his, then to drop him back on his bedroll and let him sleep the rest of the day. 

Madara had learned early that some little brothers should be given what they want, so that they could realize on their own that it wasn't what they thought it was at all.

Their prison is underground, far away from the light; another thing that they learned from the goddess. Everything that walked the earth needed her warmth eventually, and if you kept it from them, they were more likely to be reasonable. 

When they come to Uzumaki Mito's cell, she is sitting in lotus, eyes shut, meditating as if she is the only woman in the cell. From the pale diamond on her forehead, a number of black lines pour down her face, wrapping around her throat, and disappearing beneath the high collar of her kimono. 

She opens her eyes slowly as they approach, like they are the ones interrupting her. 

"Uchiha Izuna," she says, inclining her head to Izuna. "I am glad to see you are awake. But I am not happy to see you on your feet. You should be resting."

Madara resists the urge to snicker. Toriko is still settled on Izuna's shoulder, ready to tug him to his feet or break his landing with a few beats of her wings if he should stumble. The raven caws out a laugh herself, and it makes something small in the corner of Mito's mouth twitch into a smile. 

"Excuse my poor manners," Izuna says, bowing his head politely. "I wanted to set eyes on the woman that saved my life."

Mito regards them both, and the weight of her gaze is heavy on Madara's shoulders. She unfolds her hands from their upturned position on her knees, and holds out one palm to Izuna. She beckons him with a slight curl of her fingers.

"Come closer."

Madara takes an instinctive step in front of his brother, shielding him from Mito's gaze and her beckoning hand. He bares his teeth, ready to spit something terrible at her, but Izuna's hand is light on his sleeve. 

"She's come this far, ani-ja," he says. "What use would it be to kill me now?" 

It makes something in Madara's throat seize up. He doesn't want to take the chance. It's been too much, too soon, and all of it happened too at-the-same-time. He can't almost lose Izuna and get him back in the same night only to lose him again the next morning. 

He turns his gaze on Mito, eyes flashing red for the moment it takes him to lose control. 

"One wrong move," he snarls, "and you'll be dead before he hits the floor."

Mito doesn't look remotely threatened. Instead, she nods once. Her eyes are just as grey as they were in his dream this morning, but they are darker somehow, darker because of how little light makes it into this prison. Her gaze is heavy as a knife at the throat. It had felt like that in his dream, too. 

Madara keeps step with Izuna as they move forward. Mito shuffles to meet them at the bars of her cell. Madara wishes for his sword, but he knows he wouldn't need it now. They're at such close range, he could rip Mito's throat out with his bare hands if he had to. 

Mito doesn't bother rolling up her sleeves this time. She sticks both of her smooth, pale arms through the bars of the cell, and Madara can see the way the black lines on her forehead whorl around her forearms, down her wrists, and end in smooth pale purple circles at the tips of her fingers. His mind tells him to think of the way those lines might curve around her breasts, what other purple circles are hiding under the heavy cloth of her kimono - 

She's holding Izuna's face. Cradling it in the palms of her hands. She lets out a soft breath, then presses their foreheads together. 

It is awkward around the cell's bars, makes for a funny picture. Izuna sucks in a breath at the same time Mito lets one out, his eyes flashing open. They flicker between his black eyes and the red tinge of his Sharingan, back and forth, back and forth, the lines of Mito's seal infecting him, curving around his forehead as if he has a diamond to match hers, and Toriko caws something fierce before Madara has had enough. 

He shoves a hand between the two of them, gets one arm around Izuna's waist to throw him back. Toriko will be able to catch him; she can triple her size if she has to. His other hand flickers with the soft heat of a katon even in this dark place, and he's ready to blow a hole of fire through Mito's stomach. And Izuna stops him  _again_. 

"Ani-ja," he breathes, his eyes still strange, caught between one world and the next. " _Wait_."

Madara does, but he doesn't release his palm on Mito's stomach, or his arm on Izuna's. 

In a few more agonizing moments, it's over. Mito pulls her forehead away from Izuna's, and drops her hands from his face. She takes them back to herself behind the bars of her cell, and though Izuna's breathing is labored, Mito looks as if she hasn't done anything more than a light walk in a garden. 

"What," the brothers ask simultaneously, Izuna full of wonder and Madara stopped by apprehension, "did you  _do?"_

Mito folds her hands in her lap, the lines curving around her arms, her throat, her face, slowly disappearing. The marks on Izuna's face fade as well, and his eyes settle back to black, and Madara feels as though he's a moment away from combusting. 

"The Uzumaki are natural sensors," Mito explains, wiping away a bit of dust at her knee, as if  _that_ matters. "I have developed away to expand that ability into the bodies, the tenketsu systems of others through physical touch."

It explained the oddness of Izuna's eyes, but still left an absurdly sour taste in Madara's mouth. 

"I cannot harm him," Mito says, leveling her gaze at him. "I cannot harm anyone while I do it. The contact allows me to see into the body of another. It is not developed enough to be a combat technique. It is more - an intelligence gathering one."

She stops looking at Madara to look back to Izuna, and imperceptibly, she softens. 

"Your body has been focused on healing, and has diverted much of your chakra to aid in that process," she says. "My technique yesterday may have removed the infection and spurred on your body's natural processes, but you still suffer from chakra exhaustion. You need to rest."

Izuna nods, lifting a hand to his eyes. He rubs at them, and Madara swallows hard. 

"Why did my eyes - ?" 

"It's been known to happen," Mito explains. "The technique is very new. My chakra has to seep into yours to be able to see it properly, and your tenketsu system reacted by trying to force me out. The fluctuations in your chakra caused by your Sharingan were part of your system's natural defenses."

Madara pushes Izuna back, moves himself in front of Mito. 

"Is your chakra still in his system?" he demands. 

Mito blinks, her red eyelashes kissing the tops of her cheeks. He's reminded, again, of how she looked, eyes downcast, lips wrapped around Hashirama's - 

"No," she responds. "When I deactivate the Naibu Shikai, my chakra retreats back into myself. He is in no danger."

Madara narrows his eyes at her, part of him wishing that he had his own Sharingan activated. He knows it would have been for nothing. The Sharingan could not copy fuinjutsu of that kind, and the Naibu Shikai was clearly a seal that needed to be learned rather than copied. 

Mito lifts her chin. Madara realizes that he still has his hand on her stomach. He takes it back, Toriko gently grooming Izuna's hair, trying to comfort him. 

"I could teach it to you," Mito says. "It and more, if you will allow it."

"I'm not - ,"

He can't get 'interested' out before he hears a rustling behind him. Izuna is on his hands and knees, bowing deeply. Madara's jaw hangs in the shape of a gasp, and Mito looks down at the back of Izuna's head. 

"Teach me."

"Izuna," Madara snaps. "Get  _up_."

"Uzumaki Mito," Izuna says, still bowed. "You saved my life when no one else in my clan could. You did this knowing well that if you failed, your life would be forfeit. I am indebted to you beyond words."

He raises his head, and he looks as serious as Madara has ever seen them. Izuna had that look in his eyes when he demanded to be allowed to join the war party, a year and a half younger than Madara was when he was allowed to. He meant it then, and he means it now. 

"If you teach me fuinjutsu," Izuna says, "I will do all in my power and more, to convince the Uchiha to agree to a ceasefire."

Madara's jaw clips shut. 

"If you teach me," Izuna presses, "I will help you end this war."

 Mito smiles, and the expression is hard. 

"I would be happy to - ,"

"No."

They both turn to look at him, but Madara doesn't budge an inch. The instinctive Uchiha in him is rearing up inside of him, that part that is desperate for knowledge, that wants to eat information, gnaw around it until it's something he can swallow and spit out twice as deadly. 

He wants to  _learn_. Madara has always loved to learn. It's because he's loved it so much that he's been the soldier he is, the commander he is. He is  _curious_. He is always hungry for something more, to be something more. 

But this - This is the only thing, the  _only_ thing that he can't learn through the Sharingan. And his red eyes are so hungry for it, it makes him want to grit his teeth. But he can't. Not from Hashirama's wife. He  _can't_. 

"Ani-ja," Izuna says, voice wary. "Just think - ,"

"We," Madara snaps, turning to him, "are not having his conversation."

Not here. Not in front of  _her._

They both catch his drift. Mito folds her hands in her lap. Izuna stiffens. Toriko is silent, quieter than she usually is. 

Madara rises to his feet, holds out his arm to help Izuna to his. At war in him is his feeling of superiority, buoyed by standing over her, and the discomfort that has always niggled at him for being a person in power. He wears his mantle well, but he doesn't like to. Isn't entirely comfortable with the idea of being relied on, of being necessary. 

Being clan head was hard enough. Being a commander was easier. Then he only had to worry about whether or not they died honorable deaths. Being clan head was unimaginably worse; he had to ensure that every Uchiha had a  _life_ worth  _living._  

He helps Izuna rise to his feet, and though his brother turns around to thank Mito and to say goodbye, Madara doesn't hesitate.

* * *

"You're being unreasonable."

It's the first thing out of Izuna's mouth when they get back to his room. His sickbed has been changed out, the whole room cleaned all over again, scrubbed of fear for death. The smell of incense is heavy in the air, clearing away the stink of Izuna's infection. 

"I'm doing what I think is right." 

"You're wrong," Izuna snaps, "and you know you are."

It digs under Madara's skin. Izuna has always known him better than anyone. He does his best not to falter, but he does pace, lion-like, too big in the space he's been allowed. 

"You're being unreasonable because she's - ,"

"Don't."

"Madara," and Izuna says it like a warning, like a plea, one folded over the other. 

"Don't."

"She saved my life," Izuna says, pushing the matter even though he knows Madara won't like it. "She's offering us a way to end the war. She's offering us a way to  _heal_ our own from wounds that would end us before we could save ourselves!"

"Izuna, I won't ask you again."

It's the wrong thing to say. Izuna bristles at it. His face is beginning to lose color. The excitement from earlier has worn off, and he's beginning to look ill again. He hasn't eaten much these past few days since he's been ill, and suddenly Madara is worried.

"Am I your brother or your child?" Izuna snaps. "Your second or your  _infant_?"

Madara sucks his teeth, aware he's made the wrong call but unwilling to back down now that he's pushed it this far. 

Izuna takes a half step forward and Toriko picks up her cawing again, holding fast to the sleeve of his yukata. He must stumble so minutely that Madara can't see it, and she supports him in a way that Madara can't. 

"You trusted her word enough to let her near me," Izuna reasons, "but you draw the line at us learning from her. Why?" 

Madara grits his teeth, turns his head so he doesn't have to look at his little brother, still weak, but suddenly spitting with rage. 

"It's because she's his  _wife_. You can't handle it."

Madara's nostrils flare. He steadies his breathing. Sucks in air through his nose and releases it, slowly, slowly through his mouth. 

"Are you really going to be that closeminded?" Izuna demands. "That selfish?" 

He laughs, disbelieving. Madara doesn't look at him. His pride is a pricklier monster than he thought it would be, and now it is being called out by name. 

"This is for our  _people_ , Madara," his little brother says. "This is to end the war. That was your dream, wasn't it? Her techniques can save lives! And you're throwing it away now? Because she's married to Hashirama?" 

Madara swallows, bites the inside of his mouth. There was no other reason, was there. It was just him, being stubborn. His instinct was to do what was right for the clan, and taking Uzumaki Mito's knowledge would benefit them more in the long run than being rude to her, than leaving her in a cell.

"If you want her knowledge so desperately," he says, "then you convince the elders to let you learn." 

Izuna takes the bait for what it is. But before he can speak, he trips, or he loses his footing, or he collapses. Madara doesn't see it happen. But he does hear Izuna's feet go out from under it, does hear his knees hit the floor and Madara is turning, Toriko squawking. 

He's on the ground, but he's alright, and the flighty feeling in Madara's chest only settles when he manages to drag him to his bed roll, and get something soft underneath his head. 

"I'm fine," Izuna snaps, slapping at his hands. "I'm just tired. You woke me up at ass o'clock and I haven't eaten yet, I'm  _fine_."

Madara raps his knuckles against the sliding door, and it opens as soon as he moves his knuckles. The young girl behind it bows her head and mutters something about what his request would be. 

"Something light," he says. "Vegetables in broth, rice. Make sure the broth is only half as spicy as usual - ,"

"I can handle it," Izuna bites, pushing himself up onto his elbows so he can see the girl. "If there's any beef - ,"

Madara puts a hand on Izuna's shoulder and shoves him down onto his back. 

"Half as spicy, and if there is any meat, give him fish."

"Oh honestly."

Their eyes snap up to the open door, where Nadeshiko stands in black and red, her curly hair pulled out of her face. She looks down on them, clearly annoyed, but the servant girl heaves a sigh of relief. 

"Let him have the soup as it is," she says, "and the fish is fine. Bring tea as well, warm water, and new dressings for his wounds."

The girl nods and Nadeshiko gives her, her thanks before the girl shuts the door and disappears to the kitchens. Nadeshiko sweeps into the room and closes the door, a vein in her cheek jumping with her annoyance. 

"Are the two of you going to insist on being unreasonable before noon?" she asks, thumbing at the prayer beads wrapped around her wrist. 

Izuna grunts, and Madara takes his hand off his brother's shoulder as if he's burned him. Nadeshiko sucks her teeth and settles down on Izuna's other side, tugging his blanket further up around his shoulders. 

"Your fever broke, but if you push too hard, there's no telling how bad it could be when it comes back," she fusses. 

Izuna gives her a little smile with too much teeth and Nadeshiko snorts at it. 

"Don't give me that," she says. "You may be able to fool the aunties with your charm, but I was raised by a bunch of mean old bastards and their mothers. You need to rest."

Madara snickers, but Nadeshiko snaps her dark eyes to him and he quiets. Then Izuna snickers, and the thing repeats, and Madara feels as though he's in a bad comedy. 

"Ani-ja," Nadeshiko says, and it's strange, very strange to have her refer to him as such when they've only really just met the day before. 

"Please," she continues. "Leave the rest to me."

He sounds absurdly like his mother, which is odd because he knows they never met. Jingū would not have wanted it for one, and she died on the battlefield before Nadeshiko was present enough in her own mother's belly to cause concern.

"Nadeshiko - ,"

"Ani-ja."

She smiles, which is dangerous in an Uchiha woman. 

"I will handle the rest."

It isn't a request. Madara nods, feeling odd about being ordered around in a way that didn't feel like he was being ordered around. It was a demand. Plain and simple. 

"You have a guest to attend to," she says, smiling. "And it's rude to leave guests waiting."

Madara sucks in a breath. Lets it back out. He squeezes Izuna's shoulder, but the way his brother looks up at him is hopeful. Madara stands. Nadeshiko catches his sleeve as he does, and from her own, she produces a small sheaf of paper and a covered stone inkwell. 

"It's around breakfast time for her," she says, "so there'll be water. You can practice with your fingers."

She puts the gifts into his hands so he can't refuse them, and Madara curls his fingers around the paper, the sharp corner of the inkwell digging into the meat of his palm. 

"Toriko will find you if there's any trouble," Izuna offers, as if that's supposed to put him at ease. And it does, it does, but it's not enough. Not really. 

He leaves. 

* * *

He had been close. Maybe a breath away from taking Hashirama's hand. From ending the war right there. But Izuna's injury had been too severe for such a thing, so he had turned tail and he had run. 

If he had stayed, would Mito have saved Izuna anyway? Would Hashirama have done the same? The last time Madara checked, Hashirama was only still developing his medical ninjutsu. He could heal himself, but could he heal others? Could he heal them in the way his wife had?

He ponders it as he heads back, makes his feet travel the same path back as the way he came with Izuna earlier that morning. 

What did he have to be afraid of? He had already accepted her help. What made him feel so sour, so apprehensive now? Was it the dream he had that morning? Madara wasn't prone to selfishness for the sake of stubbornness, for pride for the sake of pride. He had been willing to end the war more than a week ago when Izuna had been wounded. 

He was only apprehensive now because it wasn't Hashirama doing the offering. It was Mito. 

Haru and Kou are there when he arrives, one of them guarding the door while the other gives her the tray. They take the same precautions on their way out. Madara nods to them, and they nod back. They leave without question. Their loyalty, their trust in him is sound. How much would it flake, how much would it fray if Izuna and Nadeshiko hadn't pressed him this far? 

Would the Uchiha surrender even without his lead? 

They were a clan that valued family above all other things. If Madara lost his mind, they would move along without him. Izuna had witnessed him naming Nadeshiko his heir. That would be enough for them, if Madara let his pride get the better of him. 

And what would he do after that? Where was he,  _who_ was he without his clan? 

The answer to those questions, and to one other were the same.

He steps forward, bends at the knee even as she begins to eat. She does it like she's a princess, and he doesn't think about the way her mouth moves, the way her lips part and graze the ends of her chopsticks, even when fat from the duck she's been fed dribbles over her lip. 

And when she's finished eating, he unfolds the little offerings in his hand and leaves them in front of her, between the two of them. As she lifts her cup of tea to her lips, he feels her watch him put his hands on his knees, watches him dip his head in deference to her. It makes him shiver, however much he doesn't want to. 

Had he ever been the focus of such pristine attention? For Hashirama, yes. But that was in battle. This is much, much different. 

"I humbly thank you for saving my brother's life," he says, "and I accept your offer to learn the art of fuinjutsu."

He feels her eyes follow him as he dips lower, feels his shiver expand into a strange, soft heat at the back of his neck, curling up in his jaw, making his fingers feel too warm in the cold underground prison. 

"Please," he says, "teach me all that you know."

What did he have to lose?


	3. a good friend told me you've been staying out so late

Fuinjutsu was deceptively simple. It appeared as tidy lines, elegant angles, all sharp precision. 

It's difficult. Madara isn't used to difficult. He hasn't had to try very hard at learning anything since he surpassed his masters and entered the battlefield. But fuinjutsu is not easy. It takes time, it takes patience. And it it is not something that his Sharingan can copy. 

He cannot give himself better penmanship. He learns that fairly quickly on. He cannot copy the markings exactly as Mito does them. While fuinjutsu is damn near an exact science, it is just as similarly an art. 

"Your katons and your brothers katons do not form the same way," Mito says, lifting one fine eyebrow at him. "You are of different minds and of different bodies. Fuinjutsu is the same."

She is a good teacher. She patient but will not suffer his foolishness. They have only been learning for two days, and that much is apparent. She watches with arched brows as he writes and rewrites his name, curves through old prayers and rhymes he remembers from his childhood. She has him write the entire alphabet forwards and then backwards, then all over again until the feel of a brush in his hand becomes less foreign and more like a weapon. 

She actually smiles at him when his fingers slide down it, searching for the familiar finger handle that one would find on a kunai. 

Uzumaki Mito's smiles are rare and hard won. Madara doesn't earn them often. He isn't focused on that. More than anything, he needs to know the basics. Izuna and Nadeshiko had all but leapt on him like hungry lions, demanding Mito's knowledge after he left her when the morning was full and heavy in the sky. 

"Careful," she instructs him, reaching out to snatch at his sleeve. The rush of the movement makes Madara pull back. His paranoia has kept him alive this way for years. But Mito reaches forward, snatches his sleeve and drags him back. He can feel the heat of her fingers where they bunch into the fabric, just barely keeping it from dipping into the ink. 

"Sloppy," Mito says, clucking her tongue at his work. "You can do better."

Not 'do better', but 'you can do better'. As if she was aware of his limits, of his capacity as a student or as a shinobi. It makes Madara wonder if she has talked about him with Hashirama, and what Hashirama had said to her, if anything. 

He is not only here for the sake of peace, for the sake of Izuna, but because he is a shinobi and he knows that one does not simply give over basic knowledge of an entire kind of shinobi art just to make amends for one nearly lost life. Uzumaki Mito is offering too much, and all of the Uchiha know it. 

The elders had insisted he take her lessons precisely because of that, and also to gain her knowledge. And though it has only been two days, Madara has not been able to glean much. 

Uzumaki Mito is a terribly focused woman. She is sharp and unforgiving of foolishness. She is careful when explaining things, methodical in her approach. Madara can tell from the way she behaves, the way she nitpicks his movements and the way she moves herself that she is a master of fuinjutsu. 

Her entire body follows when she uses her brush, or her fingertip. Her shoulders curve to follow her characters; she leans onto her hip so that she may bend her elbow just a little bit more to get the 'flicks' that she demands Madara both practice and spontaneously write. 

She tells him that accomplished fuinjutsu masters can begin and end a seal with the same brush stroke. This is the kind of fluidity that Mito has. He has never seen her fight, but Madara knows that if she is even half as sure with a bladed weapon as she is with fuinjutsu, she must be deadly. She wields her brush like Tobirama holds his sword, like Hashirama uses his Mokuton, like the Uchiha had katon and the Sharingan. 

It's an extension of herself. A well used tool and a perfect weapon. 

She is particular. She demands he scrap his paper and start over if he does something wrong, but encourages him to follow his messy lines wherever they take him. He feels foolish when she demands that of him, like he is a child sullying fine paper for fun. 

"Spontaneity is the lifeblood of fuinjutsu," Mito insists, cocking an eyebrow as Madara listens to her instructions to scribble. "Even the least attractive lines can be salvaged into something powerful." 

Madara wonders which ugly lines produced the Naibu Shikai on Mito's forehead. He doesn't say it out loud. He doesn't have a death wish. 

Even here, as his teacher and yet his captive, Uzumaki Mito is in perfect control of herself. Even the blind could see it. She is all tightly controlled power, poured easily into her at birth, then honed, sharpened, polished, perfected until it shone. She holds her strength like there is no weight to it, and yet with all the gravity in the world. It is as if she knows she is something great and terrible. 

She is nothing like Hashirama, whose power always sort of embarrassed him, even when he needed to use it to protect those he loved. He is nothing like Madara, who knew himself well enough to see that he could be boastful, prideful. 

No. Uzumaki Mito is steady. A perfect neutral. As if she is at peace with herself and the world around her. Madara supposes that has something to do with fuinjutsu; she is always stressing the importance of balance in sealing. 

He learns at her knees in the early mornings. It does not feel as though he is learning much. He is here to be taught fuinjutsu, but also to glean her broader reasons for being here in Uchiha territory. Uzumaki Mito is not tight lipped, but she is not prone to offering information. 

"Why did they let you come here?" he asks. 

She says nothing, only goes about the exercise. She is to create a seal with the tip of her thumb, and Madara is to mimic her movements without looking down at his own paper. 

"They did not 'let' me do anything," she replies. "I am an Uzumaki despite my marriage. I come and go as I please."

Madara wants to snort. He had little knowledge of how Uzushio operated, but Mito spoke like she was an Uchiha woman. She was just as sharp, and speaking with her was always like walking on a knife's edge. You were never quite sure if she was teasing you or not, but you were always aware when she was taking you seriously. She expected to be taken seriously in return. 

It was terrible, really, how much she reminded him of the camp women he had lain with. 

Uzumaki Mito was sharp eyes and wicked smiles. She was close, but terribly untouchable. Dangerous because she knew herself intimately, because she left no room for anything other than what she wanted of you. She was uncompromising, with a devastatingly dry sense of humor. 

And she was Hashirama's wife.

"They didn't fight you?" 

Mito does not shrug. She dips her finger again in ink, and Madara copies her. He has learned by now that ink is only one part of fuinjutsu; that it was equally ink and blood and chakra. Every fluid of the body could be used in a pinch, but blood was the strongest. It was what tied together shinobi and their summons, and it was what held the chakra together to the ink. 

"They thought to," she muses. "But Hashirama agreed that I ought to come to right Tobirama's wrong."

Madara tries to think of that, of Hashirama putting his full weight behind his wife's decision. Of him being a supportive, loving husband. It makes Madara's stomach turn. Instead he hums and follows the gentle slope of Mito's forearm by mimicking it with his own. There was no use thinking of things that he couldn't control. 

"You're a natural," Mito says, and Madara's eyes can't help but leap up at her when she says it. He has only known her for a few days, but he can tell that she is not the type to give out compliments. 

She is looking pointedly at his work, but then her eyes flick upward and steadily hold his. It was rare, to find people outside of the Uchiha clan that willingly looked directly into their eyes. Hashirama always looked Madara in the face. He had never given Madara any reason not to. 

"Hashirama told me to expect as much," she says, explaining herself. "He told me to expect much of you." 

Madara lifts an eyebrow, stubbornly trying to squash the lifting feeling in his chest. So Hashirama did have faith in him. Did speak about him, positively to his wife. That was - that was good news. 

"Oh?" he asks. 

Then something in Mito's expression shifts, goes sly and easy. She looks, Madara thinks, exactly like a cat with a field mouse between its paws. 

Her gaze travels then, down the exposed skin of his throat, over the broad lines of his shoulders. Down his arms where he is holding his finger devastatingly tight to the piece of paper beneath it. Her gaze lingers on his thighs before it travels back up. Madara's Uchiha honed sense of his internal temperature tells him it's a small miracle he isn't bright red at the moment.

"He told me how attractive you were," she says. "But I had to be sure for myself. He's known you for years, so he's bound to be biased."

She cocks her head minutely, looking at him through the pretty sheaf of her red hair. 

"He wasn't."

Madara swallows hard around the lump rising in his throat. Around the heat pooling in him. He manages to get through the rest of his lesson with Mito without choking on his tongue, and then he is running. 

She was flirting with him. Or else, she was lying to him. If she was flirting, then Madara had to wonder if Hashirama knew of his wife's proclivity for infidelity. Then, if he had known, Madara doubts that Hashirama would have sent her to Uchiha territory in the first place. 

If she was lying, she had little to gain from it, other than to confuse Madara. And what good was that, when he still held her life in his hands?

And if she was telling the truth, it meant that she found him attractive. What's worse, it meant that Hashirama found him attractive. And was that what this was all about? Saving Izuna's life to lure Madara away to be a pet at the foot of their bed, a lover that lived down the hall to be called in whenever one was away?

Madara has watched Hashirama for as long as he can remember. Even when he had that ridiculous bowl cut as a child, he was wonderful to Madara. When he grew into his face, when his hands got longer, when his  _hair_ got longer - 

And Mito was - Mito was the culmination of every woman that Madara had ever slept with. What did they want from him? To save Izuna's life so that Madara would feel grateful, so that he would crawl into their bed and be passed between the two of them until they tired of him? 

Madara has to stop himself from taking the unintentional insult wildly out of proportion. In all likelihood, Hashirama had only held a passing attraction for Madara in the past. He had told Mito about it when he was telling his wife what to expect from the Uchiha. Nothing more, and nothing less. 

Madara breaks out into the early morning sun, bypassing Kou as he enters the underground prison to bring Mito her breakfast. He belts across their land, trying to get to his brother. Izuna has always steadied him, and his brother will help him drag away his thoughts on Uzumaki Mito and her black lines and the curve of her in front of him, and Hashirama, far away, always out of Madara's reach.

He resolves not to think about it.

* * *

His dreams say otherwise. 

He is underneath the wide expanses of a brown body, dark hair falling over its shoulders to pool around Madara's neck. And he can feel -  _Sage_ above and below he can feel the blunt pressure of someone's cock teasing at his hole. 

His breath comes out in a short gasp when it breaches him, when it presses in, the slide too slow and too delicious, and when his hands reach up to hold onto whoever his fucking him, the person's head lifts, and Hashirama is staring down at him. 

There is devotion in his eyes, and it is terrible. It makes Madara quake, makes his stomach do terrible things inside of him. And then Hashirama is moving, pressing his hips forward in shallow thrusts that catch along Madara's rim. 

Hashirama catches Madara's mouth in a slow slide of lips and tongue, burning down Madara's throat when Hashirama rears back to place his kisses there. There's a dip in the bed above Madara's head, and then Hashirama is moving his legs, hooking them on his shoulders. 

Above Madara's head appears a pair of creamy white thighs, bisected by long black lines. The pussy above his face is covered with fine red hair, and right on the clit is a faintly glowing purple circle. 

Madara moves his chin upward before he can stop himself, and Mito sighs above him. She smells like musk and ocean air, and he hums against her wetness, licking flat, broad tongued lines from her tight pink entrance to her glowing clit and back again. 

Hashirama's pace is slow. Terribly slow, as if they have all the time in the world. And they do. They are in a grove of fruit bearing trees, all ripe with spring and harvest time. The world around them is heavy with perfume. 

Mito grinds down on his face, just as slowly as Hashirama fucks into him. Above, he can hear the sound of one mouth meeting another, and then he is painfully hard, cock jumping against his skin. 

Mito reaches down her hand to stroke him, her fingertip pressing gently at the head and drawing beads of precum down the shaft. Madara bucks into her grip, and Hashirama follows his movement. He bottoms out in an achingly smooth drag, one that leaves Madara moaning against the plump wet curve of Mito's pussy, slick with his spit. 

It feels like it will never be over. Like there will always be Mito above him and Hashirama inside of him, but also him around Hashirama, and him pressing into Mito. 

It almost feels like making love.

* * *

He finds it hard to face her after that.

The third day he goes into to see her, her eyes hang on the lines of his mouth for longer than they have to. He would say something about it if it didn't feed his dreams, the ones where she is between his knees and still in total control, dragging his orgasms out of him even after he's soft and weak in her mouth. Or the ones where he is between her knees, licking at her until she is raw, while Hashirama feeds her his cock. 

The dreams are vivid and intrusive in his daily life. Madara wishes he could shove them into the back of his mind when he goes to see Mito, but they always make their way back to the forefront of his mind. 

In his sleep, the lines of Mito's seal are always activated. They are long and stark against her skin. They help her see into him, help her pull him apart into her hand, onto her breasts, into her mouth. He never dreams that he is allowed inside of her, but sometimes he dreams that he is allowed to watch as she straddles Hashirama and slides down onto his length.

He dreams that he can see the line of Hashirama's cock low on the taut skin of Mito's pubic mound, too large for her but somehow nestled inside. He dreams her mouth slack with want and Hashirama's tight with restraint. He dreams her cunt spasming around him, spilling, creaming in thick white waves of their combined orgasm, or spraying, shouting as she does when she pulls off his cock. 

The fourth day, Madara makes such a severe mistake that he drags his brush far down off the edge of his paper. He had been watching Mito too closely, too carefully observing the sliver of skin exposed at the throat of her kimono. He wondered what it would be like to press his own mouth there. To bite until her flesh blossomed red as her hair, to leave a necklace of claiming bites. 

He hasn't had such dreams since he was fourteen, and woke up still trembling in his orgasm. His mind was much less inventive then; it had only been of him rutting against Hashirama, the both of them fully clothed. 

Now his mind runs away with him. 

Mito clucks her tongue at his terrible mistake, but her eyes are narrowed on the jolt of the brush off the page and then up once Madara had realized that he had been drawing on a hard stone floor. 

"You're distracted today," she says, though she does not look at him as she says it. She cranes her neck to see more of his mistake, and Madara aches to put his fingers there, not to choke her, no, but to trace the slope of it, to finger the thrumming veins beneath the skin. "Have you not been sleeping well?"

Madara swallows, but doesn't stammer out an excuse. Mito doesn't press. 

"My brother is an insomniac," she continues. It's a rare piece of information about herself, one that surprises Madara. Mito isn't the most forthcoming. She preserves to be cryptic and vague. It's part of her terrible allure, one that Madara feels foolish for getting caught up in. "He does some of his best designs when he's trying to fall asleep, or to stay awake." 

Madara nods, the motion jerky and awkward. Mito rights herself to look at him, dead in his eyes, completely unafraid. It's terrible how that sends a jolt through him, too. People only looked the Uchiha in the eyes when they were sure they could kill the Uchiha in battle. Madara can't tell if Mito thinks that highly of herself, or if she has a death wish. 

Maybe some combination of the two, or neither. 

"You ought to try drawing when you're awake at night," Mito says. She offers him a new kind of smile, one different than the sweet ones that are so clearly born of being taught politics from a young age. This smile seems wicked. Deadly at the edges. "Unless you already have another way to occupy yourself."

"You have a husband," Madara snarls, snapping before he can stop himself. "He is my  _friend._ "

A terrible word to spit, when you want more and your friend does not. 

Mito looks at him, her expression open. Innocent, as if she hasn't just suggested that the head of the Uchiha clan masturbates himself back to sleep when he can't get his eyes to stick shut. 

"I don't know what you're implying," she says. "There are many ways one can occupy themselves. Card games. Reading. Fuinjutsu."

Madara simmers and tries not to break his brush in two in his hands. It infuriates him, how he can go from perfectly at ease with Mito to devastatingly attracted to her, to annoyed all within the span of moments. He thinks it has something to do with her being his best friend's wife. And his also, unfortunately still breathing attraction to Hashirama. 

It's a terrible combination of feelings, and a combination that he knows will never be resolved. Madara is no fool. He'll likely be married off to some Senju girl, probably Hashirama's vicious cousin Touka if Izuna wasn't first. It would further strengthen ties between their clans now that the fighting was supposedly coming to a close.

 It would tie up his life perfectly. It made him want to tear his hair out. 

Madara isn't quite sure of what he wants out of this situation. His pride refuses to let him warm Mito and Hashirama's marriage bed, but his dreams refuse to let him stay anywhere else but squarely in the middle of it. 

"Why are you even here?" he asks, still seething, albeit a bit more quietly. 

Mito gives him a considering look before she twirls her brush in her hand and carefully lays it back down on her piece of paper. All of it was plain, the better to keep Mito from actually creating something that would kill Madara while they were unsupervised. Madara was not foolish enough to think that Mito couldn't kill him with her pinky finger and the inkwell, iron bars be damned. The plain paper being present instead of fuinjutsu paper was only a formality. 

She looks at the mark Madara made on the ground, copying the way it jutted just so where he had accidentally dragged it off the paper and onto the floor. She mimics it all on the paper below her grasp, hardly bothering to check and see if her own matched the original. 

She didn't have to. It did. 

"I'm investigating," she finally says, setting her brush to the side. 

Madara narrows his eyes, immediately suspicious. But Mito doesn't do anything other than look at him. 

"Investigating what?"

The look in her eye now is not coy or sly or wicked or dangerous. It is open, which is perhaps worse than all of that combined. 

She mouths the word so she does not have to say it out loud. So that if anyone is listening in on them, they will not hear it. 

_You._

Madara rises to his feet before he can stop himself, rage and embarrassment making his shoulders shake. He is not prone to losing his temper, yet here he is like a child before a rampage. 

"You insult me," he says, hands balling into fists, where ink smears in with his sweat. "You insult your  _husband_ \- ,"

Mito looks terribly collected, despite what she is accusing him of. It serves to make Madara all the angrier. 

"What are you investigating for?" he demands. "And to what end? Tell me."

Mito doesn't even have the gall to look chastised. Instead, she appears to be amused. 

"For my own benefit," she replies. "And for the benefit of my husband."

Hashirama sent his wife to heal his brother and to spy on Madara. The breach of trust is stark, snapping something tight within him. He has always considered Hashirama his best friend. To be betrayed like this - intentionally, no less - 

"To. What. End?" he grinds out. 

She waits until he is nearly spitting mad before she answers.

"To gauge your interest."

"In. What?"

She levels him with a steady glare, but Madara does not feel moved. He doubts even Amaterasu herself could make him budge now. 

"Come back tomorrow," Mito says, "and I will tell you."

* * *

 

"She infuriates you," Izuna deadpans, rolling his eyes, "but show me what she taught you."

Izuna is getting stronger every day, pressing forward to walk longer, eat more, to stay awake and alert for as long as his body will let him. Madara wants to chastise him for moving too soon, for pushing too hard too fast, but Izuna won't listen to him. He rarely listens to Madara. Usually it's the other way around; though Madara is the firstborn, he defers to Izuna, heeds his council. 

His little brother is smart. Terribly so. And Madara is so grateful that he's still alive. 

"You don't care," Madara says. 

Izuna shrugs his shoulder, staring at Madara's sketches and half formed seals before slowly copying them down himself. He's been working on his calligraphy more studiously than Madara has, which doesn't come as a surprise. Izuna is a terribly good student, but only when he cares about the subject. Besides, he had been the first to request Mito's services as a teacher. 

Madara wonders, absently, if her flirtations would have fallen on Izuna had he been her pupil. Something like jealously tells him Mito is a harlot, but something like pride tells him Hashirama only spoke about  _him_ and not his brother. 

"I don't," Izuna chirps, voice mild. "Most people infuriate you. You're easily infuriate-able."

"That isn't a word." 

"I just made it one."

"You're insufferable."

Izuna smirks at him, looking up from his calligraphy to do it. 

"Thank you for proving my point."

It's the fifth day after Mito's arrival, and little has changed. Madara has a glancing grasp of the art of fuinjutsu though Mito continues to run circles around him. He's no closer to figuring out why exactly she's here. But his brother is alive and he has an heir, so he supposes he should at least be grateful. 

If his dreams weren't still so persistent. 

"How do you do that?" Madara asks, tilting his head over Izuna's shoulder. 

He's holding his sleeve up the way Mito sneers at when Madara does it, but he's managed to perfectly copy Madara's work without lifting his brush. 

Izuna shrugs. "I'm a natural genius," he says, grinning and showing his teeth. Madara scowls and shoves him, but Izuna rocks with the movement and laughs. 

It's the closest they've been to normal in days. It's no surprise that they're interrupted. It is a surprise that it's Nadeshiko doing the interrupting. 

She's certainly gotten bolder in the days since Madara named her his heir. He's fairly sure she's secured a set of rooms for herself in the main house, and has taken to ordering people around as if she's been trained to do it her entire life. Though, in a roundabout sort of way, she has been. 

There's little mirth in her gaze when she comes in now. Rather, she looks severe, even the soft curls of her hair doing nothing to make her more feminine and less frightening. 

"The Senju are here for their lady wife."

Her voice is clipped and toneless. Madara rises to his feet and Izuna isn't far behind, but Nadeshiko puts up a hand to stop them. 

"You're in no state to meet them now," she says. "We make them wait while you get dressed."

It isn't a suggestion or a request. It's an order. Madara narrows his eyes, but he defers to her judgment. It would be good, to make the Senju sweat for a minute. And it would give him time to stop the hammering of his own heart. 

The only Senju that would be coming for Mito would be Hashirama. 

Nadeshiko is already dressed in sharp Uchiha blue, with brighter red and gold accents to harken back to her standing in the temple. Her hair is decorated with fine pins, keeping it up and out of her eyes. Her face is painted, her lips are red, her eyes lined. She looks as if she's been dressed resplendently since the morning. Madara belatedly remembers that she's getting married soon, and that she's probably been attending her husband's Hyūga family, little of it that there was considering his Byakugan-less eyes. 

Nadeshiko ushers a servant into Izuna's room to help him dress before she turns on her heel. Madara follows her back into his own chambers, where she brusquely goes about picking his robes. 

They're all in a rich Uchiha indigo, deep and dark as the sky at night before Amaterasu peeks over the horizon, and they're etched in with red and white to echo the highly stylized uchiwa on its back. 

He lifts an eyebrow at her choice, but the look on her face shushes him into following her lead. He allows his younger sister to help dress him, to tie him into his clothes, to smooth his hair back into a tight low tail that makes him look more stately and less like a barbarian. 

"Give them nothing," Nadeshiko says, voice low and sharp, "nothing but what they deserve."

He nods at her, because he knows she is correct. 

When they leave his chambers, Madara takes the lead and Nadeshiko defers. She stands to his left as they stalk down the corridors, and he is glad for it when Izuna emerges from his room, similarly dressed in deep blues and takes up his position at Madara's right. 

He feels invincible for precisely as long it takes for him to see Hashirama again. 

Tobirama is there with him, which tempers some of Madara's leaping heart. They are dressed well, too, in the red-brown colors of the Senju, the ochre of the earth. They bow as Madara and his siblings enter and stay with their heads lowered until the three of them are seated as well. 

"Hashirama," Madara says, greeting the Senju brothers. "Tobirama."

They look up as one, Tobirama's red eyes wary and Hashirama's guileless. 

"Madara," he says, smiling. Then he turns to Izuna, and his gaze is immediately relieved. "Izuna. I'm glad to see you're well."

It's painfully obvious that he doesn't know who Nadeshiko is. Tobirama's confusion is something that Madara wants to revel in; Hashirama's, however, is not. 

"May I introduce my younger sister and heir, Uchiha Nadeshiko," Madara says. "Nadeshiko, here are Senju Hashirama, leader of the Senju and Senju Tobirama, his second."

Nadeshiko inclines her head politely, her dark eyes intelligent. 

"Your battle prowess is legendary, Tobirama-san," she says, and damn is she  _good_. "Hashirama-san, I have heard much about you as well."

Tobirama prickles, but stays silent. Hashirama tries for a smile. 

"Good things, I hope." 

Nadeshiko hums, but says nothing in response. Hashirama's smile falls, just a little bit. It hurts Madara more than he was expecting it to. 

"What is your business here?" Madara asks. 

Hashirama has the decency to look sheepish. 

"I have come to retrieve Uzumaki Mito," he says. "My brother and I, well, the three of us agreed that it would be best if she were sent here to offer to heal Izuna. She told us she needed five days to do so, and now we have come to bring her home."

Madara can hear it in the slight tremble in Hashirama's voice; he isn't telling the whole truth. 

"Your wife was sent for when you arrived," Nadeshiko says, jumping cleanly into the conversation. "She will be with us shortly."

Hashirama's shoulders relax. He looks visibly relieved. 

"She mentioned," Madara says, hands purposely relaxed on his knees, "that she had been sent here to investigate something."

It's news to Izuna and Nadeshiko, but they are too well trained to show it. Tobirama's eyes land on his brother so briefly, if Madara had blinked he wouldn't have seen the quick exchange between the Senju brothers. 

"Ah, yes," Hashirama replies. "I had told her - I had hoped she would." 

Madara lifts an eyebrow, ignores the way betrayal sinks in his stomach like a stone. 

"To what end?" 

It feels like the ninetieth time he's asked, but Hashirama denies him the way his wife did. 

"I think it would be best if she were here to explain it as well." 

Madara nods curtly. Another witness wouldn't kill him. Let his siblings see what sort of people the Senju were, sending spies in the forms of pregnant wives to do their wickedness when they supposedly wanted the war over.

So they wait. It takes little time for Mito to arrive, Haru and Kou flanking her. She enters like every bit the regal woman she is and sits at her husband's left. She is not behind him, the same way Nadeshiko is just behind Madara. No, Mito sits on an even plane with her husband. 

She had said, hadn't she, that she belonged to herself. 

"I think it's time we explained ourselves," she says, cutting right to the point, without greeting anyone in the room, much less her husband. "We are all aware of the circumstances that brought me to the Uchiha. We are all well aware that my healing Izuna where Tobirama nearly killed him would have been enough to end this war. We all similarly know that my insistence upon teaching the Uchiha fuinjutsu was well outside of my obligations, in terms of blood rights."

Madara nods; they are all, very well aware. 

Mito licks her lips and Madara cannot help but track the movement with his eyes. Cannot help but  _feel_ Hashirama in the room, how every space he occupies somehow ends up smelling of sandalwood. 

"In Uzushio, it is common for one woman to take two husbands, or for one man to take two wives."

Madara stops listening. He feels as though he must be dreaming. 

"Politically, this is usually done to unite three families, while also keeping them distinct. It is more often done for love. I understand that it is not common here in Fire Country, but in Uzushio, it is common courtesy, when three people find each other - appealing."

His mouth is dry. He feels like a fool. He had known. He had  _known_ hadn't he? Why hadn't he listened to himself? Why had he continued to go back to her, even though he  _knew?_ Why didn't he trust himself?

"In terms of the Uchiha and the Senju, marriage would be the best way to end the war," Mito continues. "But marriage would combine the families, which I am sure would cause a civil war. By introducing a third party into a marriage between the two clans, the families may remain separate and still produce heirs."

Madara grinds his teeth, his jaw locking furiously into place.

"No marriage would be more important, symbolically or otherwise, than with the heads of the Senju and the Uchiha," she says. "A marriage that would allow the respective clan heads to continue leading their people."

Which wouldn't matter because even if he did get married, Nadeshiko would still be his heir. Even if he had children of his own, they would still take power after she did. Which didn't matter because this  _wasn't_ happening.

"I came to investigate any possible willingness for such an arrangement," Mito says, clearly commanding the room. "And now that my investigation is complete, I have a proposition."

She moves forward, eclipsing her husband until she is between Madara and Hashirama, bridging the gap between them but making it impossibly wider with her foreign ways, with her foolishness, with her conviction that this will solve their problems. 

Madara looks at her, then looks at Hashirama, who is only looking at him, hope awash in his eyes. Madara realizes with a sinking feeling, that Hashirama shares his wife's conviction. 

"Uchiha Madara," Mito says, "I would like to offer you my hand in marriage, and the hand of my husband, Senju Hashirama."

* * *

 

He presents the foolish proposition to the elders shortly thereafter, once the Senju are settled in guest housing befitting their status.

Madara assumes that the elders will find all of this rather insulting. That they will insist he turn out the Senju on their asses, to refuse this proposition the way Madara has blatantly ignored requests for his hand since he was old enough for them to be made.

He doesn't count on their speculative glances, their murmurings of Uzumaki chakra reserves in an Uchiha child, in an Uchiha heir learning the fuinjutsu that made Tobirama too fast for even a Sharingan to catch. He should have guessed that this, too, would go wrong.

The elders say yes before Madara can say no. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah the pacing is really only gonna pick up from here because i wrote this fic so i could write porn and it's taking a long time to get to the porn so if u thought this was happening fast newsflash it's gonna get faster and yes the chapter count is increasing becuse this is the new 'before you' aka a pet project gone wiiiildly out of my control  
> thank u for ur support ilysm


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